Starting a family

[Guest ShaQuaNew]

You might want to check out this article: (scroll down to the story "Not Without my Daughter")

 

http://asiapages.typepad.com/the_asia_page...6/01/index.html

201218[/snapback]

That's quite an eye-opening article.

 

Lou, it sounds like you're taking the time to make good choices and weighing the options by waiting rather than rushing.....

[Mick]

The staying in bed for a month and eating all kinds of special foods is a strong tradition in China. When Li gave birth to Salina, almost two years ago, observing this tradition was not an option for us. We had no family locally, so Li was pretty much up and at it as soon as she got home from the hospital. It would have been great to have her rest for a month, but we just couldn't swing it.

 

I hope it works out well for you guys. Our pregnancy was a bit of a surprise, so we didn't have much time to get things set up.

[Joanne]

I still believe that the old Chinese tradition is for the old living conditions.

 

Our daughter was born in Shanghai. Luckily I had all the support needed. However, I didn't follow the traditional rules. (I was warned by considerate neighbors that I would be sorry when I get old.) It was nice to have people help with household chores, so that I have time to take care of my baby. I love to hold her in my arms, give her bath, change her diapers and give her a daily massage. She loved the massage, was always relaxed and smiled at me when I was doing that.

[Stone]

Hospitals in China are giving newborns daily massages (in addition to all required immunization shots). Do American hospitals give newborns daily massages? Just curious.

[Jonathan]

You might want to check out this article: (scroll down to the story "Not Without my Daughter")

 

http://asiapages.typepad.com/the_asia_page...6/01/index.html

201218[/snapback]

Yes, definitely read that. It is worth the time. Frightening story about what can possibly happen.

 

Just do a search when you get to the page for "Not Without", because it is all the way down the page.

[Jonathan]

If you have a baby, DO NOT LET ANYONE SHAKE YOUR BABY!

 

Babies have weak necks, and soft brains, that can get severely injured easily. So while you see people bouncing babies up and down because they think the baby likes it, they don't realize the harm they are doing.

 

So absolutely no shaking the baby!!!

[awch]

You might want to check out this article: (scroll down to the story "Not Without my Daughter")

 

http://asiapages.typepad.com/the_asia_page...6/01/index.html

201218[/snapback]

Yes, definitely read that. It is worth the time. Frightening story about what can possibly happen.

 

Just do a search when you get to the page for "Not Without", because it is all the way down the page.

201488[/snapback]

Since people seem to be having trouble finding the article, I will post it here.

 

"Not Without My Daughter!"

No, it's not Iran. It's China.

 

Married to a Chinese national, my American friend "H" became a father almost two years ago when living in a certain Southeastern Chinese city. After spending nearly five years there (including the time before his daughter was born) H decided it was time to relocate his family to the United States where he is from.

 

"The air is so polluted here, my daughter isn't picking up English as well as I want her to and for various reasons, I don't want to raise a kid in this country," my friend had told me once the decision had been made to move.

 

Like other families comprised of an American and Chinese spouse wishing to move to the States, H and his wife went through the entire process headache of applying for a visa for "Mrs. H" and sorting out the proper documentations needed for the baby (who has a U.S. passport) to leave China and enter the States without complications.

 

Mrs. H., who speaks wonderful English, was very lucky. When she started the application process several months ago she eventually had no trouble obtaining a U.S. visa.

 

(No, it certainly wasn't easy, H told me. Loads of paperwork, numerous translations of various documents and too much money spent on various fees complicated the effort, not to mention long distance phone calls and trips to Shanghai where the nearest U.S. Consulate is.)

 

But in the end, Mrs. H got what she needed: her golden ticket to entering and residing in the U.S. The only stipulation was that there was a timeline as to when she had to enter the States before her visa lost its validity.

 

At the time the visa was approved, the timeline was the last thing on this young family's mind. As far as they were concerned, the most difficult thing on their list of things to do--getting Mrs. H a visa--had been taken care of. They had all the time in the world to actually leave China--or so they thought.

 

However, two months before their deadline, just as they were making serious preparations to move, the family encountered another, more serious problem. "Baby H."

 

Legally, Baby H, who was born in China, was considered an American citizen. She had a U.S. passport which she was able to obtain without problems. Everything seemed right on track.

 

Until my friend discovered the fact that Chinese immigration officials would not allow Baby H to leave China because her U.S. passport did not contain an entry visa into the country. In fact, Baby H's brand-spanking new blue passport was entirely empty.

 

Explaining the situation to Chinese immigration officials was not the biggest concern the H Family had. They were quite confident that with a translated birth certificate and US passport, they could convince officials to understand the situation.

 

The problem, my friend explained to me, was how to make it all legal on paper. For they were told that if the baby didn't have an entry stamp on her US passport, it would most certainly create a conflict for immigration and she would be forbidden to leave China. Either that or they would most certainly miss their flight while immigration grappled with the problem.

 

(At the time H, who speaks fluent Mandarin, had been trying to make phonecalls to Chinese immigration officials regarding what to do but was running into dead ends. Contacting government agencies in any country is always a headache. I can't imagine what it must be like in China, however.)

 

When H first spoke to me about this, he admitted that yes, there were ways around this dilemma. It would of course, include more money and unfortunately more time. And while money is always short for most people, including the H family, time was definitely running out for them. At the moment the family realized the problems they were facing, Mrs. H had only two more months before her visa to enter the U.S. expired.

 

In all honesty, despite the inconvenience of this late discovery, this should have been quite easy to fix. All the family would have to do is get Baby H a Chinese passport which meant she could easily leave on that, no questions asked.

 

The problem was, when Baby H was born two years ago, she was never registered on her mother's family record. Without this documentation, the Chinese would not recognize her as legally one of their own and as a result, she would not be able to obtain a Chinese passport.

 

"I don't know why we never registered her," H told me during one of his updates on the mad rush to get the baby's proper documents. "I guess first of all, she wasn't born in the village where my wife was born and raised. My wife and her family recently moved to XXX city only a few years ago. To register the baby on their family records would have required us to go back to her village and at the time of the baby's birth we completely overlooked this other potential problem."

 

When asked if they couldn't just add Baby H to the records now, I was informed that the only time to do that would have been something like within two weeks after she was born. She was nearing 2 years.

 

H told me his wife's relatives still living in the village helped put him touch with the village government officials who said to H, "Geeze, we understand the problem, we'd like to help, but this has never happened to us before. We have no idea where to begin on this." And then sent him back on his way.

 

H believed them. It very well is possible this little village has never experienced something like this ever and therefore had no policies implemented on how to deal with it.

 

Last I heard from H was around Christmas which meant they had a month and a half before his wife's visa entry date into the U.S. expired. At that time, they were no closer to getting the baby's Chinese passport or an entry visa stamped into her U.S. one.

 

My last conversation with him was a brainstorming session:

 

Worst case scenario was separating the family and there were two ways to do that:

 

Option #1: He and his wife would go to the U.S. while the baby stayed with relatives as they tried to pull some strings on their end.

 

Or option #2: Send Mrs. H back to the States without her husband and child as she crossed her fingers and hoped for the best while H and the baby stayed with the in-laws for who knew how long, and worked some major guanxi among the local Chinese government officials responsible for issuing passports.

 

There was the possibility of flying with the baby to Hong Kong (which he believed the Chinese would not consider as technically leaving China therefore she would not need an entry visa on her passport) and then re-entering the Mainland with the hopes of getting a Chinese entry stamp upon their return (for a U.S. passport most certainly would get stamped, he figured).

 

But, H realized, it was also no guarantee and would be even more expensive. Also at the time, his wife's family had the baby's passport with them at the village so it would have meant trying to track them down and having the passport sent back to the H Family so they could attempt the Hong Kong run.

 

Judging by the timeline he gave me, Mrs. H as of today has 10 days to move to the U.S. before her entry date passes. I haven't heard from my friend since just before Christmas. I assume he's been spending his waking hours running around trying to get things organized in time for the big moving day.

 

A month ago he was pessimistic about working things out in time and was imagining his wife alone with his family in the heartland of America as he and the baby were stuck squatting with the in-laws trying to figure out how to legally bring her to the States.

 

The optimist in me is assuming all is well and he's just been too busy to get in touch to keep me updated on their status.

 

But another part of me is also envisioning him at the airport creating a scene with immigration officials as he yells in perfect Mandarin: "Not without my daughter!"

 

January 26, 2006 in China | Permalink | Comments (7) | TrackBack (1)